Re: I think Qwest is blocking YOUTUBE

Well here I am a brand spanking new Qwest user. Only 30 minutes old. Of coarse I post self made videos up on youtube and as soon as I went to the site I noticed a HUGE lag in video playback.

I have been with DSL or Cable providers for about 10 years now.

AOL DSL, Telocity, Direct TV DSL, Speakeasy, DSL EXTREME and @home and most recently Comcast, all services provided in the Bay Area mind you. Each had their strengths and weaknesses.

Now that I am up here in Central Oregon, I seem to have a limited choice of providers which I understand completely. Clearwire (garbage) Bend Broadband (100gig cap garbage) and Qwest.

So I went with Qwest, and I am here, to say, they they most certainly have a routing or dns issue. I brought my systems up here about 3 weeks ago. No changes to them what so ever. I did not install that MSN garbage on my machines and purchased my own Actiontec 701 basic modem, using it in conjunction with a Buffalo Wireless G router with DD-WRT installed.

Youtube blows big time on Qwest. And it is a damn shame too because I am a content provider on Youtube. Other than maybe, purchasing a different modem, I should have brought my old school 5660 modem up with me. What can I do about this horrible slow down? Which is completely unacceptable in my eyes. Not to mention having a 7mb package and getting a highly fluctuating 3mb - 1.5mb download speed. And I know all about overhead and distance and line quality.

Ugh, so far I am not impressed, but it is internet, that remains at least for now, uncapped. Guess I have to log my complaint with them first thing in the morning. 45 minutes new to qwest, and already not so thrilled.

Seems like the only providers not having YouTube issues are providers with direct peering to the Google transit network; but I am not even sure about that.--Norman~Oh Lord, why have you come~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

I have been having similar issues to the OP on multiple video sites since mid-September, though mostly on youtube. It was happening again today on pbs.org's video site, so I went into my prefs and used the OpenDNS servers, and presto...problem (temporarily?) solved.

I won't pretend I know exactly what's going on here (e.g. old Qwest DNS entries as speculated upthread), but I can safely say that QWest has gone way downhill here in Washington over the past 6-12 months and it wouldn't surprise me if this was yet another problem of their own making. I've had to have them "move me to a different server at the corporate office*" 3 times in the past year just to get around 5-6 Mbps (instead of 3), which is a godawful hassle that requires hours of being on hold with folks from the Philippines as they talk to higher level support.

Anyway, just wanted to add another voice to the thread in support of the OpenDNS "fix". I'd also like to see any Qwest people respond to the umm/Slamma conversation on p.8 to see if they can help shed additional light on what is happening here. This may be something that happens with many ISPs, but I've only seen it consistently on my Qwest connection and not my friend's Comcast or my parent's Verizon.

* = I wish I actually knew what that meant...if they are moving me to a different place on a patch panel at the local POP or something like that. I have never been able to get a straight answer/detailed explanation from the techs because I never get to speak to any of the higher level people directly. The tech they sent over to my house once mentioned that it did involve moving a physical cable from one port to another, though.

I've had to have them "move me to a different server at the corporate office*" 3 times in the past year just to get around 5-6 Mbps (instead of 3) ...

Possibly related to issues with the aggregation router. SBC had to change my connection once, switching me from a nearby (Santa Clara, California) aggregation router to a more distant (Pleasanton, California) aggregation router.

Another recurring problem in SBC (now AT&T) land is profile hash. A fair number of users wind up with lower speeds than they are paying for because something went FUBAR with their profile. At least AT&T (as SBC before them) will fix the problem as soon as somebody brings it to their attention.--Norman~Oh Lord, why have you come~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum